Courtesy photo
Suzanne Johnson, now of Kittery, Maine, attends a gala ceremony at the Aug. 3, 1961, commissioning of the USS Thresher with her boyfriend, U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Edward Albert Johnson, who died along with 128 others when the Thresher sank in a training exercise 50 years ago today.

KITTERY, Maine — When Suzanne Johnson thinks back on her time together with her boyfriend, U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Edward Albert Johnson, the Kittery resident dwells on one fond memory.

It was 1962, and Ed Johnson, an engineer, was serving onboard the USS Thresher, a nuclear submarine at the forefront of its design class. Suzanne Johnson, then a Portsmouth resident, says she and other guests and family members of the ship's crew got a rare opportunity to travel to the Isles of Shoals that year aboard the submarine.

Johnson says one of her sharpest memories of the afternoon came when lunch was served to her by a young sailor on the ship. She replied by saying, “Thank you,” a response that seemed uncommon among the men in military service.

“He replied back to me, 'Thank you?' We never hear a thank you around here!' she recalls.

It was the following year that the ill-fated submarine plummeted to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, carrying with it the souls of 129 crewmen and civilian workers. Edward Albert Johnson was among them.